


Under

by Jane St Clair (3jane)



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-09
Updated: 2011-08-09
Packaged: 2017-10-22 10:13:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,428
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/236987
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/3jane/pseuds/Jane%20St%20Clair
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Xander crawls out.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Under

It's not the bed he first made love to Anya in.  That one was hers.    
The first time they fucked, stupid and high-energy, was on his old  
bed, in the small corner of basement hell that he was proud to call  
his.  This is the one they picked out together, and of all their  
furniture it's the piece Anya now apparently doesn't want.  IKEA-  
issue blandness, almost completely hidden by the blankets he's piled  
on it, both on top of and under Willow.

He wouldn't have been able to carry her here, but he didn't have to.    
She cried against him for hours, until she was out of breath and  
gasping like it hurt and shaking in his arms.  All day.  It was  
almost dark, and Xander was worrying about how to move a nearly-  
comatose Willow into town when the cab came.  Driver with a cocked  
eyebrow who looked at them like he'd seen a million things worse  
than a couple of people all teary-eyed and covered in dirt.

He was wrong, but Xander didn't think it was really worth explaining  
that.

Someone sent it, and someone paid for it, because the driver refused  
Xander's handful of wadded bills and change.  Giles, probably.    
Xander eventually convinced Willow to sleep, and when she was dead  
to the world he called Buffy's.  Got the most mixed-up excuse for a  
story he'd ever heard, and only just managed to shake off the urge  
to demand that Giles come hug him too.

He stripped down and showered instead.  Cried under the stream of  
the water where he was almost positive Willow couldn't hear him.  It  
ended with him crouched over the toilet, puking up a day of nothing  
to eat.  Acid on his lips that took ages to wash out of his mouth.

Later, in his honest-to-god, dress-me-up-and-call-me-Fred pyjamas,  
he peels Willow's jacket and blouse off and washes her down.  Not  
quite sure when he became enough of an adult to strip his best  
friend in the universe to the waist and think mostly about her  
bruises instead of her breasts.

They're tiny.  She's lost huge amounts of weight, and he can't  
remember when.  He wonders if the magic did this to her.

". . . Xander?"

"Yeah?"

"I'm cold."

"Yeah.  Sorry about that."  One of his sweaters over her head, then  
all the blankets he can manage.  She's boneless.  If he wasn't been  
dry-walling for a living, he'd never be strong enough to wrestle her  
out of her clothes.

He looked at the clothes for a long time before he decides he can't  
keep them in the apartment.  One of those moments where he misses  
living in his parents' basement, if only for the back yard that was  
just outside the door.  Uncle Rory burned so many rags out there  
over the years that no one would have even glanced at Xander burning  
things in the night.

He could do it anyway.

He gets his coat and boots and pulls them over his pajamas, puts the  
wreck of Willow's clothes in a garbage bag.  He empties an old steel  
trash can in the alley into one of the new rubber ones. Clothes into  
the can with as much loose newspaper as he can find and the gin he  
worries himself by keeping under the sink.

He remembers standing in this alley a month ago, staring up into his  
own dark apartment.  Aching all over. He'd slept in the motel for  
three nights and he still wasn't brave enough to walk through his  
own door.  Trying to figure out what, exactly, had fucked him up so  
badly.  If he'd been damaged at birth.  Maybe he should have gone to  
live in Uncle Rory's shack as soon as he was been big enough to run  
away.  There would have been just as much drinking, but there'd have  
been less screaming, and more disturbingly fun lechery.  A whole  
different set of issues than he wound up with, but would it really  
have been any worse?

And then.  Dog.

It didn't look anything like a monster.  Just a really big,  
moderately dirty dog, one that had been out running in the bush all  
day.  Found some good, thick mud, and maybe a dead moose to roll on.    
Big paws.  No collar. *Looking* at him, very seriously.

"Hey."  Because it was the most profoundly obvious entrance he'd  
ever seen.  Unless he was wrong and turned out to be just talking to  
a largish, uninterested animal.

It was Oz, though.  Dog, then strange, hairy, gorilla-dog type  
thing, then guy.  Man, Xander supposes, though the word never seems  
to quite apply to Oz.  They're years off being teenagers now, and Oz  
is older than the rest of them, but he's so little.  So naked in the  
dark.  Messy hair starting to mat into dreads, mud smeared on his  
arms and legs like paint.  Leather jewellery around his neck, like  
he'd been trying to recreated his old silver effect out of animal  
carcasses.

Oz said, "Hey."

Xander was lost for words, by then.  He hadn't been able to explain  
to Anya, or to Buffy.  Not even to Willow, when she asked him.  He  
sat down in the dry grass against the fence and stared over his  
knees until Oz came closer.  Then hugged him like a big, soft dog.    
The kind he'd thrown his arms around as a kid.  Oz leaned into him  
and let Xander rock him back and forth.  He didn't smell as dirty as  
he looked.  Just woodsy.  Juniper or something in his hair.  Blood  
on his skin.

Eventually, Oz pulled away and stood up.  Naked in the streetlight  
and looking nothing like a naked guy should look.  He took Xander  
inside and upstairs, made Xander show him the apartment.

Leaned in and kissed him in front of those big, wonderful, east-  
facing windows.

They didn't fuck in the bed.  On the floor, with Xander's clothes  
spread from door to window, and Oz naked on top of him, kissing him.    
Arching back when they scrabbled together enough lubrication for  
Xander to take him.  Sucking Xander's disturbingly clean fingers and  
growling, always very careful with the teeth.  Until Xander flipped  
him over and *took* Oz, as hard as he could, swearing at himself.    
Rolled off after and curled up on the floor until Oz slid in behind  
him and licked his neck, then turned onto his belly and grunted and  
growled while Oz fucked him.

Oz, he remembers, went and found blankets and sheets.  Big couch  
cushions.  He built fort around Xander and covered it over, crawled  
inside with a comforter trailing behind him.  Pillowed his head  
against Xander's chest and slept.

He didn't leave until the next afternoon.  There was pizza in  
between, which got eaten in the blanket-cave.  Xander suggested a  
shower and Oz made a very graceful shrug that managed to mean 'no'  
without saying it at all.  And then he left.  Walked out, down to  
the street, stood there naked and looked up at Xander.  Changed, and  
left.

If the world was fair, Xander would have a way to get in touch with  
Oz in case of very serious, world-ending emergency, but it isn't and  
he doesn't.  He thought about that, last night or the night before,  
whenever it was, dragging Jonathan and what's-his-name all over  
town, looking for a haven.  And maybe if he'd found Oz, Oz would  
have ripped the guys' throats out and saved Willow from trying to do  
it herself.  But as far as Xander knows, Oz hasn't been anywhere  
near Willow, not in almost two years.  He can't even look at her.

Xander goes back inside.

Willow's burrowed down in the middle of his bed.  She's shaking hard  
enough that she must be crying in her sleep.

Xander digs her out.  Pulls her into his lap and goes back to  
rocking.  He's hours beyond hungry, and he's so tired he almost  
can't remember how much he hurts all over.  Willow's hair smells  
like warm, salty female.  The smell of her's all over him.  And she  
won't stop shaking.  Frantic without even being awake.

He knows he isn't going to do anything, but he still rolls Willow  
down.  Holds her under him, wrists pinned to the bed with all the  
force he can stand to use on her.  Her thighs against his through  
his pyjama pants.  Naked Willow in his bed.

"Shhh."

Holding her down.

"It's okay."

Legs between his, bending up to touch him.  He isn't going to.    
There are lovers in this room that he's afraid to even imagine.


End file.
